Look Who’s Barking : New CBS Series Puts 5 Mastiffs Through Their Paces

Foster sauntered down the Seal Beach Pier, stopped at a silver dish next to a bench and lapped up some fresh water. He yawned widely, stretched out his long, lanky body and wagged his tail. Foster was ready for the cameras.

He was oblivious to the dozen onlookers who were watching Foster at work one morning for the new lighthearted CBS detective series “Tequila and Bonetti,” which premieres Friday.

Tequila, a streetwise K-9 cop from South Compton who loves junk food and women--the two-legged kind--finds himself teamed with a streetwise New York City detective (Jack Scalia) with a past. Just like the basset hound Cleo in the ‘50s comedy series “The People’s Choice,” the jive-talking Tequila provides running commentary on the action.

Though most K-9 cops are German shepherds, the 18-month Foster, who hails from Paris, is a De Bordeaux, a French mastiff--a big, rust-colored pooch with a penchant for drooling. If he looks familiar, it’s probably because the same breed was featured in the hit 1989 Tom Hanks comedy “Turner & Hooch.”

Foster stood at his mark and was ready to rehearse a scene where Tequila runs to a shed the bad guy is hiding in. The scene was already blocked for the cameras before Foster was brought in.

“I always do that,” said Roger Schumacher, Foster’s trainer, “because if you rehearse the dog, they go into a pattern and then the director or the actor (may) want to change something. I let them get all the final kinks out and I let them put the dog through it.”

Schumacher hid in the shed. Another trainer, Mathilde De Cagney, stood behind Foster. When director James Whitmore Jr. called “Action,” Foster ran to the shed and pawed at it. “Stay Foster. Stay,” De Cagney yelled. Schumacher opened the door and fed him a treat. The scene was repeated a few minutes later for the cameras. In between shots, Foster yawned and sat silently waiting for his cue.

Foster is but one of five canines who play Tequila. Each has his own area of expertise: Foster runs and does the non-action sequences, Julio is the attack expert, Everest rides on the motorcycle, Dart jumps and runs and Max is also a jumper. “We piece it together like a puzzle,” Schumacher said. “Some dogs do some things and some do others.”

The dogs are owned by trainer Gary Gero of Birds and Animals Unlimited, one of the main companies that supply and train animals for TV and movies. For the pilot, executive producer Donald P. Bellisario wanted to use the dogs who played Hooch. They didn’t work out. “The dogs I had were just impossible to work with,” he said. “The trainer is impossible, not the dogs. I got new handlers and trainers.”

Schumacher, who also trained the German shepherd star of the Family Channel’s “Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop” and Bear, who plays Dreyfuss on NBC’s “Empty Nest,” had 12 weeks to get all five De Bordeaux ready before “Tequila and Bonetti” began shooting last fall. “We’re doing a lot of our training on the set,” Schumacher said.

The De Bordeaux, who weigh approximately 110 pounds and cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 each, are very smart, Schumacher said, but also “very independent and stubborn. They are not like a German shepherd, who is very easy to train. These take a little more time.”

Posing for photographs on the pier, Foster was one very mellow pooch. And a real pro--laying down, barking, growling, looking into the camera and posing on the bench on cue. He also was very amenable to petting.

Technical adviser Joe Vita of the Los Angeles Police Department’s K-9 division, said Schumacher is an extremely patient trainer. “Roger treats his dogs like he would treat one of his kids,” he said. “He may have something where he needs to have his dog look up at the actor and look over at the bad guy. To get a dog to look in the direction you want, it takes a lot of training and patience. The dog doesn’t always do as he is told right the first time.”

Bellisario admitted it’s been very difficult shooting the series. “This dog is there all the time,” he said. “It’s difficult for the actors to film with the dogs. Each show goes along, they get better and better, but you still have times when you are trying to do a scene and you have got a trainer offstage saying, ‘Here boy. Look here. Sit.’ ”

Most of the dog sequences are filmed after the main scenes are shot. “You would be amazed how much filming we are doing on the dogs after the pictures are made,” Bellisario said. “We get in and shoot tons of footage on the dogs and then we cut it in.”

“The key is learning how the dogs operate,” said Whitmore, who also is the series’ producer. “You are shooting fast, it is an eight-day shoot and the dogs are young and brand new. It’s a very interesting thing to watch them slowly build a portfolio. We’ve watched them go from unable to walk and stop where you want, to jump through things, yawn and wink their eyes.”

Though Foster and the canines are usually on the set by 7 a.m., Schumacher is very careful not to tire them out and he makes sure his charges have fun working. “They have a big trailer,” Schumacher said. “It’s air-conditioned. They all stay in it and they are walked all the time.”

During their off hours, they live a normal life of a dog at home with their trainers.

“They get treated very, very well,” Vita said. “... Here, when they are not working, they are sitting over in an air-conditioned trailer and they get the best of food and the best of training. They really have a good life for an animal. It would be a good life to be reincarnated to--to be a movie dog.”

“Tequila and Bonetti” premieres Friday at 9 p.m. on CBS.